1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an electrical circuit for generating an output signal corresponding to a trigonometric function of an angle input signal. More particularly, this invention relates to a circuit which can selectively generate any of the standard trigonometric functions: sine, cosine, tangent, cotangent, secant and cosecant.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A wide variety of techniques have been developed to generate trigonometric functions using analog circuitry. For example, prior techniques for generating sinusoidal functions include piecewise linear approximations, polynomial and other continuous function techniques using multipliers, special translinear circuits, simple modifications of bipolar-transistor differential amplifiers, and circuits comprising large numbers of such differential amplifier stages connected in periodic antiphase.
In general, previous approaches depend on using specialized circuits for each trigonometric function. Thus, quite different techniques are normally employed for generating the sine function and the tangent function. Methods for generating the reciprocal functions (cotangent, secant and cosecant) are rarely described.